Infinty
by Singerdiva01
Summary: Bill's new tattoo leads our favorite leaders on a trip down memory lane.


"William Adama, did you get a frakking tattoo?"

Laura peered up at the new marking on the Admiral's shoulder from where he'd tucked her into bed moments earlier after gently tying her scarf, knotting it for sleeping, and swaddling her in blankets. When he didn't respond immediately, she found her glasses on the bedside table and put them on with a trembling hand to get a better look.

He sat down gently on the rack so as not to jostle her aching body and allowed her to run her fingers over the black, intertwined circles on his right shoulder. He bit back a sigh at the realization she'd been in Life Station so long that it had time to heal before she saw his uncovered body again.

When it seemed she'd had her fill he got into the bed and wrapped his arms around her waist, his blue eyes just inches away from her inquisitive green ones.

"I recognize it. I know I do and I should…" she trailed off with a sigh and glanced away so as not to see the pain in her Admiral's eyes. The cancer and the diloxan and the morpha made her mind fuzzy and these moments were came with alarming frequency these days.

Rather than lose himself in the melancholia, Bill kissed her cheek and whispered, "do you remember the first time we made love?"

She smiled genuinely, her eyes lighting up for the first time that day.

"Of course. It was right after we came back from Kobol and we'd just had that huge fight in CIC…"

_"You made a promise not to challenge my authority in front of my crew, Madame President," Commander Adama roared as he slammed the hatch, leaving the guards outside trembling and worried another of their leaders' famous fights would again end with the fleet divided._

_Laura Roslin was not in the least bit intimidated. She kicked off her heels and they hit the bulkhead with a satisfying thunk before she stomped to his desk to start gathering her files._

_"And you promised not to keep secrets from me. And must I remind you that I'll do whatever the frak I want. That's what being president means, Commander," she snarled without turning to look at him._

_"Are you ever going to trust me? Is that word even in your vocabulary, Laura?"_

_The softness in his voice, the newness of her name on his lips, the sincerity of the question and her unsurety of the answer gave the president pause._

_"Bill, I…," she sighed, turning around to look at him for the first time. He was standing closer than she expected and she was rendered speechless by the intensity of emotion swimming in the blue pools of his eyes._

_Who lunged first would be a source of contention throughout their relationship but their lips met with a ferocity that far outmatched any fight they'd ever weathered. Laura ran her hands down Bill's shoulders and he tangled his hands in her hair, their tongues continuing the battle in silence._

_It was Bill, of this they were both sure, who pulled away first. He cupped her cheek in his palm and took in her expression, hungry and scared and curious all at once. He took her hand and led her to his rack, mumbling something about 'doing this right.'_

_There they explored each other's bodies slowly, him shushing her gasp at his still angry red scar and her gently showing him which breast brought pleasure and which caused pain. He kissed his way to her sex and explored gently, hungrily, until her screams echoed off the bulkhead. When he brought her to the brink a second time she closed her eyes against that knowing, loving expression before coming apart again._

_She'd known this was inevitable and she assured herself the tension that had building between them was sexual, nothing more. Once they'd both recovered she moved to get out of the rack, find her clothing, and return to her ship. She knew she was in trouble when he pulled her body against his own and traced circles across her back in an unseen pattern until she fell asleep._

"You were quite sure of yourself, Adama," Laura whispered, raising her hand from his waist to trace the new tattoo again.

"Look who's still in my rack, Roslin," he growled into her skin.

She giggled softly.

"Alright, so this is what you were tracing into my back all those times. But I've seen it before."

"Where, Laura? Try to remember," he prompted, silently pleading with her addled brain to cooperate.

She closed her eyes and remembered the feeling of being drugged, not diloxan or morpha but New Caprican weed mixed with the taste of Chief's rot gut. A red dress. Sand bags under the stars.

_"We really should take this inside your tent, Ms. Roslin," Adama said, his words belied by the slightly clumsy motions of his hands working feverishly inside her camisole._

_He'd almost worked it off with one hand, the other under her skirt, when one of her students ran past, laughing. That was enough incentive for him to reluctantly replace her garments, pick her up and carry her to the cot inside her tent before starting again._

_The awkwardness of new lovers long gone, along with the desire to savor each touch as if it might be the last, they frakked with abandon. She screamed into his palm when she came, aware of the flimsiness of the tent walls, before immediately falling asleep against his chest._

_When she woke he wasn't there but also long gone was any concern he'd frakked and fled. She stretched, basking in the sunlight creeping in from the flat, before replacing her dress and stepping, blinking, into the light to find her admiral._

_She found him behind the tent on their sandbags, again running his fingers through the sand. This time, though, he was tracing intertwined circles delicately in the dirt._

_"Playing in the alluvial deposits again, Admiral?" Her smile was radiant as she sat down beside him, careful not to disturb his artwork. She indicated one of the designs with a delicate finger._

_"What does it mean?"_

_He looked at her for a long moment as if trying to find the perfect order for his words._

_"It means…," his soft explanation was cut off by the sound of laughter and the tread of military boots, their slightly tipsy blonde owner coming into view moments later._

_"Admiral! Madame President! I'd like to invite you to my wedding."_

"New Caprica," she breathed softly. Her eyes filled with tears as Bill found her wrist and started tracing the pattern around the angry bruises caused by too many needles. That memory, of his soft fingers soothing her against the pain as she sat with poison dripping into her veins in Life Station, was almost too hard and too near to bear.

"So, tell me now, my Tauron soldier," she said playfully, willing away the sadness. "What made you decide now, rather than when you got married or had kids or one very hot president made you an admiral, to finally put a needle to your skin?"

The admiral met her gaze.

"It's an ancient symbol that represents the perfect duality between a man and a woman, neither whole without the other. It never ends, the bond is never broken," he finished, wiping away the tears streaming down her gaunt cheeks.

He kissed her gently and weeks later, as he placed the last rock in the second circle on her cairn and relished the burning of the sun on the still tender mark on his shoulder, he remembered her delight at the new knowledge that he'd seen them together, this way, all this time.

Admiral and President. Bill and Laura. Sine qua non.

Infinity.


End file.
